


Pet

by Gem_Gem



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blood, Blood Loss, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Death, Gore, Light Angst, Mental Disintegration, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Sadistic Thoughts, Violent Thoughts, Zombie John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:38:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8433826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem
Summary: John, like a big chunk of the world’s population, was what many were labelling, a Zombie. Sherlock hated the word, hated what it stood for. John was not the walking dead, he was not a reanimated corpse; John was merely infected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A Halloween story that has nothing to do with Halloween within it!
> 
> This story was inspired by all of these things: Shaun of the Dead + Fido + Misfits.  
> I'm sorry for hardly any updates. I'm struggling with life and what life throws at me. I have been unable to write on my own for a long time. I can only gather the motivation by writing with others, as it helps to inspire me by having another person involved. I try and have someone to bounce ideas off with my solo stories, but it doesn't always work.  
> However, I have not given up! I will get back to my solo stories! I love them and love all of you!
> 
> This story was written a while ago, last year, in fact. I hope you like the twisted, creepy thing that it is! Happy Halloween!
> 
> \- Sorry about the ending. It was difficult to end and I wasn't sure if I wanted, or could do it, as a one shot or not.
> 
> \-- If you think I should add more tags, please tell me what they should be and why and I'll add them!

Sherlock attached the collar and harness to John with a sigh, tugging and manhandling John when he went to pull away with a grunt and a growl. Sherlock huffed back at him, pulling at John’s coat sternly, and tightened the collar, attaching the lead. Dexterously he weaved the lead down the back of the coat, wrapping it around his own fingers securely, before he grabbed for John’s hand to hide it and turned and led John down the stairs and past Mrs Hudson. She smiled when John brushed the fingertips of his free hand along her cheek gently as he went by with a rumbling purr, and then she moved to see them off at the doorway, huddled in her cardigan, looking both apprehensive and down.

John, like a big chunk of the world’s population, was what many were labelling, a Zombie. Sherlock hated the word, hated what it stood for. John was not the walking dead, he was not a reanimated corpse; John was merely infected. One of many. John was not a walking, rotting, cadaver, and he did not defy the natural world and have superhuman strength. John’s heart beat, his mind worked, and a huge portion of his memories still remained intact. John was pale, John was a somewhat hazy shadow of his former self, but John was still John; even if he did try and rip people’s skin and muscle from their bodies with his teeth in a prodigious hunger that never seemed to dull.

Most of the others had been shipped off or destroyed, but Sherlock had fought with everything he had to keep John by his side. Thankfully no one knew about the state of John but for a small selection of people, which included Mrs Hudson, Molly, Lestrade, Anderson, Donovan and some other members of the police force. Of course, they had tried to get John sent away after they’d figured it out, only to fail in the face of Mycroft once Sherlock had twisted Mycroft’s arm, almost literally, and used his brother’s status to forbid any and all actions made by them against his friend, his John. John had remained stoic and calm amongst all of the shouting and panic-stricken attempts of getting as far away from him as they possibly could, and Sherlock had been proud and overly smug. John remembered faces and names and scents, remembered everyone he had ever known before the infection. Sherlock was sure that, little by little, John could come back to him and fight the virus.

Sherlock had already been testing out theories and equations, experimenting on John silently and carefully, trying to cure him and bring him back. John would let Sherlock poke and prod him without compliant, would only stroke a hand through Sherlock’s hair and down his cheeks whenever Sherlock was close enough. Sherlock tried not to think too much on what that tender and affectionate touch meant, couldn’t stomach the thought that John was saying goodbye or sorry, that it was his way of telling Sherlock to let him be and to stop; or worse, that it meant nothing at all and John was gone.

Out in the street, Sherlock looked around and pulled up the hood of John’s coat to further hide the appearance of the collar, flicking up the lapels of the coat and then tipping up John’s head with fingers on his chin. John looked back at him calmly and lifted a hand to card through Sherlock’s curls with a low sound in his throat and a tilt of his head. Sherlock smiled at him, gazing at the altered eye colour of his friend’s irises, and removed the hand, pushing it instead to his own cheek briefly, before he turned and flagged down a taxi.

The crime scene that he was visiting thankfully wasn’t too far, and Sherlock shot the cabbie tight smile after tight smile as John continuously growled lowly beside him, obviously still untrusting of cab drivers. Normally John would have kept such a thing a secret, would have instead plastered on a friendly smile and politely avoided any sort of discussion with the driver as much as he could, pushing his trust issues to the back of his mind; but the new John pulled his lips up into a snarl and growled like a dog, like an animal. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it was there and it was definitely threatening, and though there was no reason for John to growl at the man, it still made something in Sherlock flare with affection and sadistic interest. 

The thought that John would still gladly and easily kill for Sherlock without hesitation made Sherlock’s smile quirk into a dangerous smirk, and he eyed the cabbie in sudden, unneeded, and bloodthirsty consideration. All he would have to do was loosen his hold on the lead and John would lunge across and embed his teeth into the thick, flabby neck of the man. It wouldn’t be the first time that Sherlock had let John loose. Sherlock’s smirk curled ever wider with the flexing of his fingers at the vivid mental imagery of John’s teeth tearing through skin and tendons and ligaments, painting the inside of the cab red and slicking the windows and the steering wheel with viscera. Sherlock looked down and slackened his grasp on the lead a little with a languid stretching of his fingers, watching John lean forward with a thrill of dangerous sadism and a bubble of hysteric laughter.

“Oi. I said we’re here,” the driver said gruffly as he turned to glance back in frustration, pulling Sherlock out of his malevolent reverie. 

Sherlock blinked, clenched his fingers tightly into a fist around the lead and paid the man silently with his other hand, pulling John out onto the kerb. John followed with a grunt as Sherlock strode quickly from the taxi without looking back, ducking under the police tape and ignoring everything that had just happened. It had been happening a lot lately, his daydreams of gore and violence, his need to let John take and ruin what he wanted. John had a good sense of morals, surely the people he didn’t like, he didn’t like for a reason? They would be doing London a favour by reducing the population too, there were far too many people in the city, too many bodies cramped into too small a place. Even after the infection, even after the knock to humanity, there were too many, much too many. Besides, they were evil people, more so than John, more so than even Sherlock, and so they needed to be punished, didn’t they? And what better way than to let John tear them apart?

“Sherlock,” Lestrade muttered with a sigh when he caught sight of John, still edgy and frightened around him, despite everything Sherlock had informed him, had showed him. John liked Lestrade. Had always liked him. John would never harm him. “Look—”

“I won’t hear it,” Sherlock snapped as he breezed ahead, stopping only briefly when John dug his heels in to touch a hand to Lestrade’s shoulder, patting clumsily and warmly to Lestrade’s coat, head cocked and eyes locked. It was routine now, something John always stopped to do. “Come along, John.”

John made a strange sort of rumble and stared at Lestrade a moment longer than Lestrade seemed to like, then shuffled to Sherlock’s side, baring his teeth at the officers that he didn’t recognise loitering either side of the corded off area.  
Sherlock turned to face John once they were within a few feet of the corpse and stared at John until he fixated on Sherlock’s gaze and touched his face with gentle and fond fingers, his almost supernatural eyes fixed on Sherlock intently. Sherlock had done the same routine many times before, and although people thought he had somehow trained John to stay put, like it was some kind of trick, Sherlock knew that it was nothing of the sort, knew that on some level John just seemed to understand him without the need for words, like before. With a nod and a fleeting nuzzle into John’s touches, ignoring the sounds of disgust from around him, Sherlock unravelled some of the lead from around his fingers and walked back, allowing space to grow between them both slowly, before he allowed himself to shift focus to the crime scene, knowing that John would not move or act without his say-so.

Throughout the inspection everyone was relatively silent and uneasy, keeping a safe distance from John as Sherlock worked. Sherlock didn’t mind, in fact, Sherlock preferred that they remained away from him, every one of them was useless and pathetic and idiotic, the only person who Sherlock disliked being so far, was Lestrade, and he regularly shot the man a frustrated look whenever he strayed too far back. There were reasons they were mostly all wary, of course, and apart from wanting to be away from what they labelled the ‘sideshow’ of Sherlock Holmes and his domesticated, infected flatmate, it was mainly because John had once tried to pounce on Donovan several months back. All it had taken was one muttered and snide comment concerning Sherlock’s sick and twisted choice to keep John as a pet, and John had lunged. He had understood and he had attacked. The entire act had been fully justified in Sherlock’s eyes, but he had kept John back effectively enough. He grinned manically at the memory, remembering how he had let the lead lengthen just enough for John to shred Sally’s coat from her shoulders and growl in her face, leaving the woman petrified and almost hysterical. It taught her a valuable lesson that day, to Sherlock’s mind, it taught her to still her wicked, dirty tongue in the future. 

Sherlock flashed Sally a malicious glance as he straightened, heady from the recollection, and enjoyed the frown that crumpled her forehead as she locked eyes with him. He wondered how her skin would crumple with John’s fingers writhing underneath it, tugging it from her skull with a rip of nerves and snapping veins.  
With a slow, mollified blink at the thought, Sherlock turned and explained to Lestrade what he had found, hopeful and brimming with delight when John grunted and smiled in amazement at each deduction. To anyone else it meant nothing, in fact, Sherlock was sure that they saw and heard nothing but a monster when John was present, but he didn’t care. John’s embodied voice reverberated in his head regardless, and he gazed at John’s face, preening and grinning at the unheard praise, paying no heed to Lestrade’s worried expression.

He left with John in tow, ignoring Lestrade’s comments and concerned urgings as he always did, and smirked with an unhinged expression at the next cab driver, reading the man’s life from the assortments on the dashboard, the scent of his cologne, the smudge at his collar, and the calluses on his fingers, before Sherlock allowed himself to imagine what his guts would look like strewn over his soiled driver’s seat and wedged under the acceleration pedal. John, as always, growled in his seat beside Sherlock, and leaned further and further forward as Sherlock relaxed his hold on the lead playfully, almost letting John dig his teeth into the man’s shoulder before they came to their destination and Sherlock dragged him onto the street instead.

>>

The case took them half way across London by the coming of the second day, in a slightly run down house surrounded by filth and the stench of death and stale food. Sherlock glanced around the tattered settee he and John were hiding behind and took in the scene for the third time, his eyes jumping from one thing to another in a crazy flitting, frantic and eager as his pupils pulsed. The man they were after, who had entered the residence not ten seconds earlier, was alone and unaware. He was a child groomer as well as a child killer, and Sherlock narrowed his shifting gaze as he brought himself and John silently closer, a morbid and gruesome plan forming in his mind.  
Lestrade was at least a couple of streets away and Sherlock knew he would not arrive to capture the man in time; it was only by sheer luck that Sherlock had broken in with the killer later re-entering and milling around within seconds. Looking back at John, Sherlock forced him to look into his eyes and then signalled for him to stay, letting go of the lead before he jumped up to confront the man, wrestling the sudden gun out of his hand without a second thought, having known the man carried such a pistol. The man, however small, was resilient, and after Sherlock’s initial surprise, he tensed and caught Sherlock with a mean uppercut to his jaw. Staggering, Sherlock saw the next incoming hit but, with a quirking grin that the man missed, allowed it to connect, as he did the next one and the one after that, groaning and spitting blood as he was punched in the gut.

“That’s right, hit me!” Sherlock exclaimed with a somewhat manic laugh, teeth strained with blood and head spinning with pain, as the man grappled him to the floor. “Best to make it believable—hit me in the face again, make sure to bruise it good.”

“What?” The man asked sinisterly, reaching for a knife from the hidden pocket in his jacket that Sherlock hadn’t foreseen.

“Well, I can’t very well explain your death without a little bruising to myself, can I? Makes sense that I’d be bruised if he was acting to help and protect me after all,” Sherlock panted with a wince and a wheeze, still managing to smirk through what felt like a split lip. He caught sight of John rising up from his crouched position behind the settee, eyes more enthral and supernatural than before, and made sure that he had one hand free to gesture to him. “You see, he only really attacks for three reasons; when he feels threatened, because I tell him to, and when I’m under attack. -- And although I could have easily countered your blows – except that first one, well done you, by the way – and kept him back, I thought against it, and do you know why?”

The man frowned deeply in confusion, the expression contorting his scarred face horridly, and Sherlock watched as John moved to loom over the man’s shoulder with obvious intent to kill, “What?” The man spat angrily, intimidating Sherlock with the sharp edge of his blade.

Sherlock felt his expression shift crazily, jumping from anger and vicious glee in rapid succession, “Because you’re a child murdering bastard, that’s why,” Sherlock drawled as his lips broadened on a faintly deranged grin and he pointedly flicked his eyes to John, who had only been slow in his stalking because Sherlock had indicated him to be. Sherlock’s grin widened, hurting his cheeks, pulling apart the cut on his lip, and he continued with a wispy sigh, “Now, I could still call him off…”  
As Sherlock trailed meaningfully off, the man finally turned to look up over his shoulder at John and Sherlock grabbed the man’s arms and body, locking him strongly in place with his legs and hands. The man struggled but Sherlock held on and waited for the man to realise what John was, what John could and would do, and watched the colour drain from his face as he realised his fate. Sherlock felt a flare of almost sexual pleasure at the man’s whimper and John’s rumbling growl, and stared into the man’s pleading eyes when he turned to obviously beg for his life.  
“…But I won’t.” Sherlock whispered cruelly into the man’s ear.

As John lunged down with a vicious growl, Sherlock pushed the man up into his awaiting jaws and barely flinched when John’s teeth dug, ripped and tore at skin with hungry intent. The wound spurted hot, thick, copious amounts of blood that hit Sherlock in his face and then gushed to cover him in the next moment, almost utterly drenching him in it when John virtually destroyed the man’s carotid artery. The man, the child killing bastard, let out a bloodcurdling scream a few seconds too late, and dropped the knife to scramble and fight John as he bled out. Sherlock increased his hold on him and urged John on with a laugh, watching closely as John gnashed his teeth with frenzy and ripped a chunk of the man’s neck away in one vicious jerk of his head. It was beautiful, almost majestic, and Sherlock gaped up in entranced splendour while John descended again. The man’s screams were thick and wet and broken, and Sherlock laughed harder, reaching with one hand to grip the man’s hair and pull, enjoying the heavy, clumsy, weakening swatting of the man’s arms as he tried to continuously fight. Sherlock pulled again, and again, grunting with effort until, finally, the head fell limply to the side with a sickening tearing, John’s next deep bite, and Sherlock’s rough wrench, all but breaking the man’s neck. Sherlock pushed the lifeless and weighty body aside, and cupped the back of John’s nape affectionately as he ate and attacked ruthlessly, thrusting scrabbling fingers down the gaping hole he’d fashioned to pull out lungs and heart with frenzied appetite.

Whistling happily to himself, Sherlock picked up the discarded knife, heedlessly wiped it clean on his blood-soaked coat and then grunted as he used the handle to smash the man’s skull in at his temple. It shattered completely into pieces after a few well-aimed and strong thrusts that drove the handle of the blade into the bone callously, and Sherlock admired his handiwork, pushing at the distorted head in amusement. Cutting the skin off the scalp next, Sherlock picked out bits of bone and threw them over his shoulder as he reached in to pull out the mushed brain, feeding it to John like one would a lover, and then eyeing a handful of it with vague interest and a sudden wild craving.  
The flashing lights of Lestrade’s police car stopped him and he dropped it with a wet splat, leaving John eating as he stood fluidly to his feet, adjusted his coat, changed his expression and limped out to meet the inspector.

When Lestrade surveyed the scene after Sherlock had pulled John away, he noticed the knife and the smashed head with a strange expression and told Sherlock to go home with disappointment and bewilderment, flinching back when John reached out to stroke bloodied fingers down the Inspector’s cheek. Sherlock was briefly angered by the recoil but sighed and shrugged, reaching for John to pull him away. Only Sherlock knew John wasn’t a monster, that John wasn’t like the rest of them, that John wouldn’t hurt anyone unless Sherlock told him to or the person deserved John’s resentment in some way. John was still John, even if he wasn’t fully there, big chunks of him still remained, enough to warrant Sherlock’s attention, enough to keep the spark of hope alive in his chest.  
Sherlock continued his limp out of the house, breezing past Sally with a wild grin, happy to leave her shaking.

Mrs Hudson was tucked up in bed when they returned home, and therefore unaware of the state Sherlock and John were in, for which Sherlock was thankful, and he led John quietly up into their flat, running them both a bath. He hummed a tune as he stripped first himself and then John off, cupping and stroking John’s blood soaked face in affection, amused when he found pieces of the dead man’s skin and organs trapped in his teeth or stuck in clumps within his hair. John grunted in response, happily swaying into the touch, and Sherlock pushed their foreheads together, uncaring of the squelch of gore between them and insanely pleased when John’s fingers skimmed up his shoulders and throat, leaving red, sticky trails in their wake.  
They bathed together, sitting in bloodied, murky water, and Sherlock wondered about the future, about their future, but it brought too many dark, upsetting thoughts, and so he merely watched John watching him and smiled. John must be still there, lingering behind those infected eyes. Sherlock wouldn’t give up. John was his. John needed him. He would keep him and continue to try and get all of him back, regardless of anyone else, regardless of his own state of mind. John made a purring sort of noise, mouth twitching and curling up at the sides, and Sherlock’s own smile widened. Yes, all that mattered was John.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback fuels me!
> 
> [Gem's Tumblr](http://gem-gem-bites.tumblr.com/)   
> 


End file.
